"It is crudely general to suggest collective responsibility for the German populace. It is, however, fair to suggest that those who continued to defend the idea of Germanhood publicly as the war went on—when this had become synonymous with barbarity—were in fact renouncing their humanity for the sake of individual survival and peace of mind."
Panayiotis Demopoulos, Götterdämmerung: Suicide Music
The Non-Farm Payrolls Report this morning was a mixed bag, with enough different kinds of data to provide material for both the hawks and the doves.
The dollar initially rose and stocks dumped, in sympathy with global stocks overnight action, especially the emerging markets.
But at some point Wall Street decided it was all good, and the word went from desk to desk that 'the Fed's got our backs, come what may. So don't ask why, just buy!'
And so US stocks climbed for the rest of the day on slow but steady buying, and after initially being slammed hard lower, gold recovered, as did silver, which managed to hold on to the 15 handle.
Speaking of handles, gold is now doing what I wanted to see in terms of setting a proper handle for the potential 'cup and handle' formation.
Look carefully at the gold chart below, and the way in which the price is moving within the longer term trends. I do not know what is going to happen, but it certain helps to have a well-marked road map.
Stocks are jammed up into some more substantial overhead resistance, and with earnings season coming up, the Fed will have to provide more support than smarmy whispers of easy money for financial assets, and let the real economy fend for itself.
And when this latest bubble, third of this cycle, collapses like the rest, more substantial edifices to greed may fall than just some personal fortunes and pensions.
US equities initially sold off on this morning's Jobs Report, but then reversed as Wall Street looked at the landscape and decided that come hell or high water for the real economies of the world, the Fed has our back.
The major indices are now at their 2016 highs.
And they are now at major overhead resistance.
The Fed needs to provide something more substantial to keep this one going.
"Full fathom five thy father lies,
Of his bones are coral made,
Those are pearls that were his eyes,
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change,
into something rich and strange."
William Shakespeare, The Tempest
Let's see how we do through the Non-Farm Payrolls Report tomorrow.
Like most of the really big, substantial changes, this one continues on, moving slowly, lulling almost everyone into a false sense of continuity. And then the sea-change comes.
According to Bloomberg, even with this sluggish March trading, this was the 'best quarter for gold in 30 years.'
We live in a time of great trend changes, in finance, in politics, and power.
Traders were continuing to sit on their hands for the most part, judging by the volumes, waiting to see what unfolds from the Non-Farm Payrolls Report tomorrow.
The market has had a nice upwards bias thanks in large part to Chairperson Yellen and her dovish cooing about easy money. The problem is that most if not all of this easy money is being used to inflate financial assets bringing profits to the top ten percent.
The real economy continues to languish.
And so I think that risk is grossly underpriced, right now.
Earnings season is dead ahead, and I suspect that they will not be all that good.
“Pity the nation whose people are sheep,
and whose shepherds mislead them.
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced,
and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice,
except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero
and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.
Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own
and no other culture but its own.
Pity the nation whose breath is money
and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.
Pity the nation — oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away.
My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.”
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
"I think that what we need to do is pretty clear. If one views the current version of the Democratic establishment as a different kind of evil rather than the lesser of two evils, one has to withhold support and votes regardless of the consequences. For me, it will start by not voting for Hillary. Then perhaps it would be worthwhile to organize to challenge the corporate wing."
Jesse's Samoan Attorney
I hear this from quite a few of the professional class, who formerly might have leaned for the more liberal side of the political equation in the recent past. They have become utterly disillusioned with the personal greed and duplicity of the political establishment.
Speaking of which I enjoyed this video interview with Thomas Frank about What Has Gone Wrong with the Democratic Party.I thought it was a brilliant dissection of what has happened with that party, and the liberal establishment in general. The GOP gets plenty of attention with its own problems, which are rather significant.
I normally do not follow party politics all that closely, but one would have to be fairly oblivious not to see the shifting of the bases under the established leadership of both parties in the US. And I believe that this has some analogues in Europe as well, and especially the UK and France.
And the times, they may be a-changin'.
Gold moved lower today WITH the dollar, as the VIX measure of volatility moved to its lows for this year at least, while the SP 500 and the Dow Industrial hit their highs for this year.
Smells like the end of quarter to me.
The Non-Farm Payrolls report will be 'the big thing' on Friday.
A number of people forwarded me a link to that really embarrassingly clumsy video hit piece on gold in the Financial Times Alphaville last week Izabella Kaminska. I wonder if Alphaville is the infomercials section of FT.
It was actually so bad, such a chain of non sequiturs, it was a howler. I have refrained from commenting on it, or the 'serious' blogger who was touting it, because it was not even in the ballpark of serious analysis. I took it as a desperate attempt by those who are holding on to the shortening end of their bullion ropes, marshalling the forces of their minions and courtiers. LOL.
I have included a brief video from Jim Rickards below as an antidote.
But all things in their own time. Let's see what happens. As I have said, I suspect we will be seeing quite a short squeeze on bullion, perhaps around the middle of this year.
Let us pray for those whose hearts are hardened against His grace and loving kindness by greed, fear, and pride, and the seductive illusion and crushing isolation of evil.
We pray that we all may experience the three great gifts of our Lord's suffering and triumph: repentance, forgiveness, and thankfulness. And in so doing, may we obtain abundant life, and with it the peace that surpasses all understanding.
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